Acytota, Virales, Viridae, Virinae, Virus
by PhoenixAZ
Summary: Based on my charas from The Epidemic:  A group of viruses that come together to survive in a body where no virus has ever taken hold.  But they do the impossible, and manage to find their way to a body where viruses roam free. [Epidemic fic later]
1. Chapter One: The Work Of A Virus

The girl's body had been nearly destroyed by infection, the cause of which was currently walking down one of the main highways in the girl's circulatory system, the Aortic Expressway. The place was deserted; flames and rotting tissue surrounded what had once been a thriving city. If anyone had been there to see the culprit, they would have been quite surprised by her appearance.

She was a virus, but a clear membrane replaced the normally opaque membrane that most bacteria bore, allowing anyone around to view a dark-grey cytoplasm. What had probably once been a defense mechanism to camouflage infecting bacteria of her earlier family among the cells in a body was now completely counteracted by various other mutations. Patches of ashy grey clouded the view through her membrane slightly, a long and rat-like tail swishing lazily behind her, two alien-like antennae sprouted from atop her head, and two ears that seemed a mixture of rat and elf stuck up nearly as high as the antennae. A single, bright eye gazed out at the scene around her, in the correct place had there been another eye to match on the other side. But another eye had never formed, and so she was left with one, off-center, and magenta eye.

"This should be enough to get me to a hospital of some kind." She said to herself, stopping in the middle of her stroll and reviewing her work. A few bright orange pustule-like things bubbled up in her cytoplasm. She reached her long claws into her throat, carefully tearing one out, and waited for the holes to seal themselves before regarding the pustule. She tossed it gently in the air once, catching it and chucking it as hard as she could. When it landed there was a small pop as it burst, covering any nearby tissue in oozing black pus that ate away at whatever tissue it came in contact with. Smiling, Melanie went back on her way.

The Black Death was at work here.

* * *

**Meanwhile, in another body**

_"It's all right sir, I think the stiff neck is only being caused by Viral Meningitis. It's the lesser of the two, so I'm going to prescribe bed rest, fluids, and these anti-inflammatory pills. Don't worry about it; it's mostly been just a harmless bug."_

A tall virus with a lean body, built much like Melanie's was with a clear membrane-like capsid showing into a light green nucleic acid, gritted his teeth. Digging his claws into the chair of the Memory Record's Room in the man's cerebrum, the virus rewound the recording back a little and replayed it.

_"Don't worry about it; it's mostly been just a harmless bug."_

The doctor had called him a harmless bug? A slow smile spread across his face.

"If he wants _harmless_, I'll _give_ 'im _**harmless**_." With that, the tentacle-like appendages that hung off of his head like hair coiled sinisterly inward, then shot out like bullets. They stretched as far as they could, embedding themselves deep into the walls of the room and delivering a powerful electric shock. The lights in the entire city of Kevin dimmed and flickered. As they finally went out, save for a few eerie sparks here and there, Delirium grinned.

And Viral Meningitis went to work.

* * *

**Meanwhile, in _another_ body**

"Come on, Bella." A tall virus called over his shoulder, nearly blending into the shadows of the alleyway he stood in. His dark purple capsid matched nearly perfectly, only broken by a red patch covering his face and his long, red claws.

"Coming Ramyx!" A young virus girl with bright yellow capsid called happily, skipping forward in a purple skirt and top that matched her friend's capsid completely. He grabbed her hand and led her calmly across the blood vessel road to an Immunity Station, a nearby lymph node. Ramyx presented a pair of laminated and official looking ID cards to the white blood cell at the door and he let them in, albeit a little reluctantly.

'_But why would he trust us,'_ Ramyx thought to himself, _'We're vaccine viruses, sure, but we're still viruses.'_ Once inside and past the various checkpoints, Ramyx hung Bella's ID card around her neck on a string, doing the same with his own. He led the smaller virus quickly through the main room of the office, ignoring the glares the white blood cells were giving the two viruses from their cubicles as they passed. Finally, the pair made it to the meeting room where the local Chief of the Immunities sat, waiting to hear their weekly presentation.

"What _took_ you so _**long**_?!" the Chief bellowed. Bella shrunk back in fear, but Ramyx put a hand on her shoulder to comfort her.

"Sorry, _Chief_." He replied calmly, trying not to show how angry he truly was about this whole thing, "We had to get breakfast on the way here, and there are only a few places that serve viruses. We had to go practically across the city." The Chief mumbled angrily, something that sounded like 'lazy viruses', 'excuses', and 'no-good, troublemakers'. Ramyx just ground his sharp teeth together, and focused on keeping his sharp, spiky cilia from extending in anger.

"Alright, state your findings, _Paramyxovirinae_." The Chief said, growling the last word with enough venom to kill a rattlesnake. Ramyx stepped forward, ignoring the use of his full name, and handed the Chief some papers.

"There's a small den of Mumps viruses in the East Dock section of the Colon." He stated in a methodical manner, "They plan on going for the Right Parotitus in four days. They also plan on having a small group dispatch to the Throat to cause a sore throat as a distraction. Other then that there has been no word from any other Mumps or Rubella viruses. The Rubula Crime Family is staying quiet, and I haven't heard of any action from the Morbilli Crime Syndicate either." The Chief looked over the papers as Ramyx finished, an awkward silence pervading the room.

"Alright, that's good _enough_. You can _go_ now, Paramyxovirinae." The Chief said, waving distractedly towards the door to his office. Ramyx nodded silently and led Bella out of the building, silently bristling at every insult thrown their way. Once they were out of view from the building, safely in a dark alley, Ramyx roared loudly. The spikes that lined his head, arms, and back extended in the blink of an eye, then contracted slowly back into his body. Bella watched curiously.

"I can't **stand** those _Immunities_!" Ramyx roared, spitting the last word out with as much venom as the Chief had earlier, "They think that just because we're viruses they can treat us so badly? Ha! Without us, they wouldn't have any clue where to go! They'd be lucky if a really dangerous virus was spotted by one of those morons they call officers, seeing as how they're lucky if they can tell their nucleus from their vacuoles."

"Then why don't we do something about them?" Bella said from her position on a fire escape. Ramyx stopped cold, half-way into his rant. Slowly he turned to face the younger virus with a look of astonishment on his face. Then, a slow, wide, and obvious evil smile spread across his face.

"An _excellent_ question, Bell. Why _don't_ we?" He replied, rubbing his clawed hands together, "I think it's time we paid the Brain a visit." Bella leapt up, giggling and clapping in joy. A look of pure happiness spread across her pink freckles face.

"**Yay**! A trip!" She cried, showing sharp teeth and a mottled red mouth.

"Yeah, a _special_ trip, just for _you_ and _me_." And the two walked off down the streets towards the very hub of the Central Nervous System.

The work of Mumps and Rubella was just beginning.

* * *

**Meanwhile, in _another_ – Oh, you get the idea**

"_**Urgh**_." A virus groaned drunkenly from his booth at the local bar. His bright red nucleic acid tinted dark from his black capsid. Red eyes were no clue as to his level of inebriation, they were always red. However, the splitting headache he had, as well as his inability to currently form a clear sentence were excellent hints. He grumbled something to himself and watched carefully as two Immunity officers walked past the bar, hoping they wouldn't notice him.

When they passed him without a second glance he went back to nursing his drink. What was it? His fifteenth, sixteenth? He had lost count a while ago. Ah well, and Malcolm gulped down the drink and blacked out, drooling all over his tattered clothing.

Hemorrhagic Smallpox's work had never begun.

* * *

**Meanwhile, outside in the bloodstream of the same body**

Three new viruses had been injected by a hungry mosquito, and cautiously made their way towards the seedier parts of town. In this body, however, the seedy parts of town were few and very far between.

"I don't think we can go _that_ way." The tallest of the three said, long antennae twitching. Four dark green arms were folded across his chest while insect-like wings, partially covered by a leather poncho, buzzed in tension. Three shiny, black eyes scanned the area around the trio, their owner on high alert.

"Maybe I could..._distract_...the Immunities while you two make a dash for it." A very curvy, female virus purred, her black hair-appendages snapping hungrily at the air. Her form shifted slightly, the curves moving even more too all the right places, her cilia collared dress becoming just a bit lower cut, just a bit shorter skirted.

"I don't think that's a good idea, Miss Elisse. We should listen to Swahili." The final member of the trio replied, voice muffled as he adjusting the bandages around his head. This figure was a dark, sickening brown-yellow, his form mostly covered in bandages, minus the pair of ragged pants and the various bits of gold jewelry such as, but not limited to: gauntlets, armbands, a crown-looking thing, a belt, greaves, and a few piercings. Three bright red eyes stared out from a heavily bandaged face that included covering the mouth. A long, barbed tail snaked around in front of him, and two sickly looking antennae wiggled slightly on top of his head.

"We should go that way." Swahili said, one of his four arms pointing down a decrepit alleyway, "I sense other viruses."

"Oh, very well." Elisse sighed, body becoming less curvy as she transformed to her true appearance, "Come along Harus."

"Yes, Miss Elisse." With that they slipped into the shadows of the

West Nile Virus, Lassa Fever, and Dengue Fever have a long way to go for their work.

**End Chapter One**

* * *

Alright, here's some biology notes:

1. A capsid is the outer layer of protein on a virus, since they aren't cells they don't have a phospholipid membrane. Look it up people.

2. The inside of a virus is nucleic acid, not cytoplasm.

3. Black Death is caused by a bacteria called _Pasteurella pestis_, and bacteria have membranes and cytoplasm

4. I hope you all know what the nucleus of a cell is. That's the big blob in the middle that holds all the DNA.

5. Vacuoles are the parts of an animal cell that contain and remove waste or other things that could harm a cell, as well as maintaining the correct pH. Basically, Ramyx is saying that the Immunities can't tell their head from their ass.

6. Finally, the title for this story comes from the following: Acytota (the sometimes used Domain name for viruses), Virales (the suffix for a virus's Order), Viridae (the suffix usually used for its Family), Virinae (the suffix usually used for its Subfamily), and Virus (the suffix usually used for both Genus and Species)

6. I'm aware that I am a very, very big nerd.


	2. Chapter Two: Bacteria and Acytota

"Fool." Melanie spat as she clung to his thumb and climbed into his blood stream. Really, these humans. They were making this _too_ easy. The child that Melanie was infecting had been transferred to a massive hospital in a country called 'the United States of America'. Melanie had never _seen_ a hospital so large. Although they knew much more about medicine here and she had been forced to hide because of the antibiotics being given to the child.

But here they were, giving her a chance to escape. A young priest had come to the hospital to bless the sick children. And he had an open _cut_ on his fingertip. The finger on the hand he just so _happened_ to be using to apply holy water in the shape of the cross on each child. Melanie couldn't help the grin that stretched almost from ear to ear. This was almost _too_ easy. When the priest reached the young girl it took Melanie less than a second to slip easily through the holy water barrier, into the open cut, and finally into the safety of the priest's Bloodstream.

However, the moment she landed her clawed feet safely on the surface one of the smaller capillaries, she heard a siren behind her. Turning swiftly, she found herself face to face with a small army of Immunities.

'_Dangit. They must've known this was going to be a problem today and sent squads out to make sure no one breached the skin...'_ She thought hurriedly to herself.

"Bacterium! Surrender _now_ and we will not have to resort to _forceful_ measures!" Four sets of antibody cannons were aimed directly at her, and there was the resonant 'click' of a loaded and cocked gun. Melanie carefully raised her arms above her head, but behind her back her tail came up slowly and wrapped around a pustule in her neck from behind. Pulling the pustule out, she took a slow step forward, then whirled around in the blink of an eye, launching the pustule down the barrel of one of the cannons. There was a resounding pop and the entire cannon began to dissolve. In the chaos caused by this action, Melanie managed to slip away into a side road.

"_Stupid_ Immunities." She muttered. All of the sudden a bright spotlight shone down on her and she could hear the beating of chopper blades.

"**Bacterium! Please **_**cease**_** and **_**desist**_** all hostile action! We **_**will**_** open fire!**" Melanie could just make out a white blood cell manning both the spotlight and another, smaller, antibody cannon. Whipping back around she ran back the way she came as fast as she could. There was a shout behind her and the sound of the cannon firing. The shot missed, but only barely, and Melanie had to skip to the side to avoid being hit by the splash it caused. Ahead she could see the cut she had entered through. She pushed her legs to their limit to speed up just a little and was almost there when she heard a cry of:

"I've got a lock on her, and I'm taking the shot!" Then the noise of a cannon firing.

'_Crap!_' Melanie thought to herself, and then she dove forward as she felt the antibody round hit the ground just behind her. The shockwave carried her out of the cut and she fell. And fell and fell and fell. Because a few feet is like a few hundred miles if you're only micrometers tall. But she finally landed with a splash in some odd liquid. After shaking off the initial daze of falling that far she swam cautiously to the surface of the liquid and looked around.

There was a mouth just ahead to her left, and with a start she realized she was in a puddle of the person's saliva and the person was twitching like mad.

'_A seizure? Another disease at work, I'm sure._' And she began to swim towards the body. After what seemed like hours she washed up on the surface of the person's tongue, exhausted. Forcing herself to climb up just a littler higher to avoid being washed out again, Melanie made it to the throat before collapsing asleep.

* * *

**A While Later**

"Crap! Of all the times ta run inta the Immunities!" A loud voice from somewhere next to her head woke Melanie. The jarring, bouncing of her body didn't help much either. And of course, being slung over someone's shoulder with the offending joint jammed into your stomach, while bouncing up and down on top of it, is never an easy thing to sleep through. That was about when she realized that someone was carrying her on their shoulder.

"Hey! Who are you?! What's going on?!" Melanie shrieked, turning to look at the cell carrying her, "Wait, you're not a cell...You're a virus! Hey! Let go of me!" The virus skidded to a stop, executing a quick turn into an alley and stopping. He set Melanie on her feet and pulled her up against the wall he was currently flattening himself against, one of his clawed hands clamped over her mouth to keep her quiet. A squadron of Immunity cells rushed past. While he was busy watching them to make sure none of them saw the two of them, Melanie regarded her savior/fellow disease.

He was wearing an unbuttoned white shirt with two long tails, as well as a pair of red and black plaid clam-diggers, spanned in the back by three black strips of cloth. He also had a matching plaid headband holding his long tentacle-like dreadlocks up, and a pair of plaid arm warmers that were attached to each other behind his back by four strips of black cloth. Melanie couldn't help but wonder how he moved his arms freely like that. Once the Immunities had passed their alley, the virus removed his hand.

"You saved me from the Immunities?" she asked, looking up at the tall virus, "Why?"

"We diseases 'ave ta stick together, ya know." He smiled and proffered one hand, "The name's Delirium. _Enterovirus echovirus_, Viral Meningitis. And yours?"

"Melanie." She responded, shaking the offered hand heartily, "_Pasteurella pestis_, the Black Death. Pleased to meet you Delirium."

"And you too, Melanie." A loud siren from nearby caused the two to start.

"We'd better get going." Melanie whispered. Delirium nodded and the two made their way to the opposite side of the alley.

"So what's the _deal_ in this body?" Melanie asked, seeing the lights in a nearby building flicker and spark. Delirium took a few steps forward, sparks leaping from his feet to the ground. Then he turned back to look over his shoulder.

"_I_ am." He replied simply, "I overloaded the circuits. _I_ can create electricity ya know. Just by moving it builds up in my nucleic acid."

"_Cool_. _I_ have grenade-pustules of tissue rotting acid in my cytoplasm." Melanie responded.

"_Cool_." was the simple response.

"_Isn't_ it?" She answered, deciding she liked this virus. A large 'snap' sounded and every light in the city went out. Then they began flickering again, coming on after a very hard push by the Central Nervous System, as evidenced by the loud 'shoom' and the massive Myoclonic Spasm that rocked the body and nearly knocked the two diseases to the ground.

"This body is dying..." Melanie said, looking around solemnly, "Is there anyway we can escape this body to another body?" Delirium stopped and sat on a trashcan, thinking hard.

"Yeah," Delirium said after a while, "His sister is coming in about three hours for a visit. A _last_ visit if ya catch my drift. If I can trigger a seizure big enough, maybe we can escape notice of the Immunities while they try ta get it under control. Then we can get ta the Uvula, I can trigger the Throat and Lungs and cause a cough. Ya can move by Respiratory Droplet, right?"

"I can. That's a _great_ plan. No wonder a virus like yourself, usually thought of as a _nuisance_ more than a _threat_, has brought this city to its knees." Melanie said, and then thought about what had been said, adding sheepishly, "There was a compliment in there _somewhere_." Delirium chuckled.

"S'alright, I know what ya mean." He said, "I heard the compliment. Besides, it was because I was called a '_harmless_ _bug'_ that I decided ta do this."

"_**Diseases**_!" came a cry from the entrance to the alley. A group of Immunity cells had spotted them. Looking at each other, then back to their pursuers, the two diseases booked it out of there as fast as they could. They could hear the Immunities trying to keep up, but the diseases had much longer legs and could propel themselves faster with clawed feet digging into the organic streets. That and the small pits filled with rotting tissue left behind by Melanie's feet slowed the Immunities up quite a bit.

The two germs made quite a bit of headway, managing to lose the Immunities rather quickly. However, Melanie's former exhaustion caught up with her and her legs went numb, unable to run or even walk any farther.

"I can _carry_ you." Delirium suggested, "It wouldn't be _too_ big of a problem. I mean, I'm stronger than I look." Here he flexed a nonexistent bicep, causing Melanie to chuckle.

"Alright, if it's not _too_ big a problem." The Bubonic Plague bacterium agreed.

"Good, now _'old still_ and _don't_ freak out." Delirium responded. Melanie was about to ask why he said that when she found herself wrapped partway in his tentacle-dreads and lifted off the ground. Melanie was surprised, to say the least, when the two of them shot off like a rocket. Delirium was indeed much stronger than he looked if he could still run that fast while supporting her weight. In no time the two diseases arrived at a run-down old section of the body. The lights flickered ominously as Delirium stopped in front of a boarded up building.

"Where _are_ we?" Melanie asked.

"We're in the Right Kidney. It apparently hasn't worked for a long time, so it's been abandoned for years. I've been using it as a hideout." Delirium responded, using two more tentacle-dreads, plus his own arms, to rip a few boards off the door. Melanie had been bored along the trip to the Kidney, so had counted fourteen tentacle dreads sprouting from the echovirus' head. Once inside, Delirium laid Melanie gently on the floor and sat beside her.

"_So_ what's with the whole tentacles for hair thing?" the Bubonic Plague bacterium asked her viral comrade.

"I don't really know, all I know is that I've been using them for extra arms when I need 'em and they help me eat."

"Eat?"

"Oh, I never mentioned that I eat cells, right." Delirium explained, "I drain the cytoplasm from other cells and leave behind an infected nucleus that'll eventually sprout into more copies of myself"-here Melanie shivered a little despite herself- "Don't worry. I only eat White Blood Cells. They taste the best."

"What do they taste like?"

"Not sure 'ow ta describe it. It's kinda sweet but not overly sweet, ya know? Anyway, ya should get some rest if you wanna be rested for our escape." Delirium responded, curling up slightly and dropping quickly to sleep. Melanie curled up as well, yawning as she felt her exhaustion catch up fully with her, wrapping her tail around her feet to keep them warm. As she drifted off to sleep she noticed with some amusement that Delirium's tentacle-dreads had woven themselves into a braid as he slept.

* * *

Notes:Antibodies are what the body uses to detect and neutralize foreign bodies. So now it's a weapon! Delirium talks with a slight accent of some sort. He doesn't pronounce 'h' on some words and says 'ta' instead of 'to' and 'ya' instead of 'you'. He also combines 'will' with almost any word that comes before it. _Enterovirus_ _echovirus_ is only one of many viruses that actually cause Viral Meningitis. _Pasteurella pestis_ (also called _Yersinia pestis_) is the bacterium that causes the well-known Bubonic Plague. A Myoclonic jerk is what happens when you're about to fall asleep and you suddenly jerk really hard and wake yourself up. It occurs when your body mistakes falling asleep for dying. It then sends a signal your muscles to act as sort of a jump-start, causing them all to rapidly contract and relax and your body to jerk. They also occur when you actually are dying. Respiratory Droplet Transmission is one way diseases can be spread. When you cough, sneeze, or even just breathe out moisture moves along with the air. These tiny droplets are called Respiratory Droplets. Respiratory Droplet Transmission can transfer both Viral Meningitis and Bubonic Plague. Viral Meningitis is often considered the lesser of the two types (Bacterial and Viral) because it has a lower mortality rate and is simpler to treat. Delirium uses the tentacles like long straws to drain the cytoplasm from the cells he captures. He also can use his naturally created electricity to stun them (like an electric eel). His nucleic acid is light green because it's naturally light yellow and when he eats, the cytoplasm of the victim cell mixes with his nucleic acid. Since he normally eats White Blood Cells, and they have blue cytoplasm in the movie, that makes his nucleic acid green. 


End file.
